CH 52

Chapter 52

When Peaceful Times Cease To Exist : In The Beginner's Dungeon, Part 1 — During the Journey

Translated by KaiesV

Edited by KaiesV

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At the very same time that Miliazar was writhing in the Palace of the Deep Green, what were Alfiris is doing…?

Penniless, they worked in a tavern.

Alfiris and Lisa was able to get a job at the guild, but Nia, Fenna, and Miranda could not belong to the guild due to their positions, so they did menial work at the inn where they were staying. As to how this happened, the circumstances go back a few days.

On that day, Alfiiris and company were on their way to the Prairie to deliver Fenna to the rest of the Seekers. The Prairie is a vast expanse of grassland between the central and northern roads to the east. Rather, it might have been better described as two roads developed to avoid this Prairie.

The land, which is said to take at least a month to reach even if one rushes through on horseback, had been a favorite destination of the Archfiends. The land was not only wide but also deeply forested, and perhaps due to a mysterious magnetic field, it was easy to get lost even though it was a meadow with a good view, and the land was unusually strong with magical beasts and fiends, turning it into a magical land even though it was truly a meadow with a good view. Even after the fall of those Archfiends, this land served as a buffer zone between nations, and was also one of the places where ethnic minorities and criminals who had been forced to flee their countries could escape. Even after they were occupied, the land was attacked by fiends and such ethnic groups one after another, and the maintenance of the land was not commensurate with the labor involved, so it was abandoned at some point.

However, on the other hand, since various rare materials can often be gathered from such places, and a wide variety of fiends and monsters appear, there are always people who enter the prairie for guild requests or to test their skills. Rumor has it that there are fiends in the meadow called Lords and Spirits of the Wind that help travelers, but no one has ever seen them alive. As long as rumors circulate, someone must have seen it, but it was a place that can be said to be that mysterious.

It is said that Fenna’s friends have a large base of operations in one of these places. Fenna has not yet had a good look at the whole place, but it is said that more than 5,000 Seekers live there. The next destination for Alfiris will be that village.

To get back to the story, Alfieres and company were in town to shop for various goods before entering the Prairie. Miranda and Lisa were out haggling over commodities at various locations, Alfiris was out getting weapons, and Nia was out estimating food. And for Fenna, after all, it was a bad idea to leave her at the inn with her luggage, as it was difficult to keep her out of sight given her appearance. Apparently, there was a merchant staying at the inn, and Fenna had been deceived into buying all sorts of things. Fenna had to manage the extra money as well, so the merchants were like ducks carrying leeks on their backs.

Fenna looks so solid that Alfiris and others forget that she has never left the Seeker’s Village and is extremely naive. She has no sense of money. Moreover, Fenna is an unparalleled lover of jewelry and shiny things, and when Alfieres and the others returned to the inn with her best smiles, she said,「Look at all of this, aren’t they all so beautiful?」They all dropped their bags involuntarily when she showed off her jewelry. She had no idea that all the travel expenses for 5 people x 2 months would be spent in an instant.

To make matters worse, the gems were all imitations. It was not that Fenna was not a connoisseur, but she only thought of it as「a gem of unusual material,」and had no idea how much it was worth. However, as Alfiris and most of the others had expected, the jewelry fetched only two or three cents a piece at the pawn shop, so Alfiris and the others, unable to pay for the day’s lodging, asked the innkeeper for a job.

「U’aaah—! Why am I doing this to myself?」

「No, this window-wiping action is moderately disciplined.」

「You want me to defend yourself in a circle. What kind of training is that!」

「But I’m quite fond of this『service maid uniform』thing. I don’t like to wear clothes as much as possible, but these are fluttery and cute.」

「I wonder why the manager was so flippant…?」

The manager, who was completely taken with Miranda when he offered her a job, was「just going through the motions,」so he had a new wardrobe for the women. It seems that this was the dress that his wife wore when she was serving a noble family in the past, and when the manager saw her working in that dress, he fell in love at first sight and asked her to marry him or not. The skirts seemed rather short, and she wondered why there were three serving gowns in the same size for each of the Alfiris’ company, but it was hard to refuse when the manager’s eyes were moistening as he said,「She looks just like my dead Alfiris and the others knew they were asking for too much, so they could not say anything extravagant.

And when he dressed Nia and Fenna in what he thought would be serving clothes, they also looked good. So Nia is feline by race, and Fenna has outstanding style, even though she is generally a dark elf. In this state, they also work in the dining room on the first floor where customers come outside, and their acceptance was surprisingly quick. However, the guests sometimes said「So moe—!」or some unfamiliar language, which bothered Miranda.

Among them, Nia is the most flirtatious. Apparently, she is not used to being pampered as a woman.

「Nia-san! I can’t wait to order this one too!」

「Hold on, I’m coming.」

「Nia-san, you are so cute!」

「I–I–I can’t possibly be that cute!」

She is turning bright red, but her reaction is already cute enough. The clients seemed to get the point, and by the end of the job, they could see Nia, who was so flushed that she might have been overheated from being cajoled.

Fenna’s is good at sewing, and she began to modify her own clothes on her own. The skirts are getting shorter and the bust seems to be opening up and exposing more. Thinking about it, Alfiris has heard that elves originally did not like to wear much clothing, and that many of their race wore only light clothing. In the beginning, Fenna also tried to go out in public wearing only a robe after taking a bath, and they all panicked and stopped her. Maybe they should teach her from shame.

Either way, at the same time that Miranda was thinking something silly like,「If I took these two and opened a store, it would sell like crazy,」Alfiris and Lisa were looking for serious work at the guild.

「How’s it going Lisa, what’s your request?」

「There are no big requests in a town with a population of about 50,000. It is a town that has nothing to do with the aristocracy. There are not many requests as sensors. If it were a town on the periphery of the Prairie, there would be a lot of exploratory requests, and things would look different.」

「The same goes for me. This is also a safe city and a transit point, so most of the requests are for transportation or escort. They don’t have any big requests, and there aren’t many requests that we can fulfill while we’re still here in town.」

「Maybe it’s because Alfie’s rank is so low?」

「Guh, I can’t argue with you on that one.」

「However, there is no use in asking for something you don’t have. 」

「Goodness gracious, I’ve never even heard of an E-rank that can hunt Archfiends.」

「Even if you say so, I can’t apply to the guild for my last request~!」

As the two of them were puzzling over this, a very good-natured guild owner with a pipe in his beard approached them, perhaps not seeing this.

「You guys, don’t you have any money?」

「Yeah, you see… 」

Alfiris speaks of the reasons why.

「Hmmm, then I have such a request. I purposely didn’t post it because I figured it would raise eyebrows. It’s kind of sketchy.」

「What kind of request it was?」

「It’s this, though.」

The guild master opened the paper and showed it to them.

「Let me see…『Open recruitment for dungeon search personnel. 500 pents/day per person remuneration, no rank rules, also travel claims, food, and weapons expenses, up to 20% of remuneration can be claimed…』 Aren’t we being treated absurdly well here?」

「But I’m suspicious to the fullest. You talk too much.」

It’s a great request for the Alfiris, who are short of money, but it’s also too good to be true. Incidentally, if you don’t splurge, the cost of lodging is approximately 10 pent per room and per meal. For each additional person, the market rate is 5 pents per person. If you send your sword out to be sharpened, it’s 5 pent at most, and if you have a complete set of travel equipment from bare bones, you can get by with 100 pent if you don’t question the quality. Incidentally, most of the requests for luggage transportation, such as the one Alfiris saw earlier, are for 50 pent/day. No wonder the guild master was suspicious.

「Right? I heard where they were located, so that makes it all the more special.」

「By the way, where is it located?」

「It’s an archaeological site less than a day’s drive into the Dulcass Forest from the east. That is a very shallow location and the ruins themselves are not large. It’s big enough to walk every inch of it in two ticks. I remember it because I used to explore it myself. It’s so commonly known as the『Beginner’s Dungeon.』」

The guild master squinted and blew smoke at the paper.

「Hmmm. Who is the client who put this out there?」

「I don’t know, it happened in another town, anyway. I can only think of it as some rich person’s indulgence. And there’s no limit to the number of participants. If we get 1,000 applications, they’ll be asking us if we can pay them, and if we can’t, it’ll be a credit issue. So I didn’t post it openly because I figured there was something behind it.」

「It’s a reasonable idea. Alfie, what do you want to do? By the way, my hunch is that it’s not going to be good, but the conditions themselves may not be so bad.」

「Well, it is…」

Alfiris thought for a moment. There is a flip side to every tasty story, but it is also true that she would like to have a good paying job to break out of their current situation as quickly as possible. The most profitable jobs are mainly fiend and beast hunting and exploration, but most of the preparation and meals are self-financed. On the other hand, escort and transportation jobs require little preparation and are often bribed, but the rewards are not as good and, above all, are time-consuming.

Alfiris wondered if she would be safe with such a large group, but then she thought of the Blackhawks she had fought last time. She didn’t feel alive when she was If she had come across an enemy of that level. Her decision will affect everyone’s life. So, what will she do?

「Uncle, as far as you can tell, how many guilds have those postings circulating?」

「I wonder how many…? This area has a population of 10,000 and there are guild chapters, so there would be 20 alternatives.」

「How many applications did you receive?」

「I’m pretty sure I heard that in the neighboring town of Mita, population 20,000, there were about 20 applicants.」

「All right then, we’ll take it.」

Lisa was a bit surprised, but Alfiris was quick to sign the application. The guild’s uncle seems concerned, too, but Alfiris thinks it’s dangerous but not life-threatening enough to take her own life.

「Lisa was a little surprised.」

「What of?」

「I thought I would take it, but it was a quick decision. By the way, what was the deciding factor?」

「I was thinking of the total population of this neighborhood. The 20 surrounding cities have a population of about 1.5 million, so based on the ratio, there must be about 150 people who applied for the program. Something like that.」

Alfiris twirls her fingers in a somewhat smug manner. Lisa’s face, unusually, is a bit scowling.

「You did the math that fast? I was wondering before, is Alfie unexpectedly intelligent?」

「It’s tricky to say “unexpectedly,” but my studies were hammered into me by my master. Well, I don’t have anything to compare it to, so I don’t know how well I can study. But as far as this request is concerned, with about 150 people, I think it’s hard to imagine a total loss. Worst case scenario, if we use someone else as bait, we could escape on our own.」

Lisa’s face contorts a little at these words.

「…That’s so black-hearted. I thought you were more of a righteous person.」

「Unfortunately, I’m not on the side of justice. Of course, we help those who can be helped, and we don’t kill needlessly. But I’m not strong enough to think I can help them with anything, because the last battle showed me that I’m not strong enough. I’ll be stronger and farther along in my quest for justice.」

「I think it already sounds pretty righteous, though. I can’t tell you how many times you’ve helped people in need on the side of the road before we got here.」

「Did I do that?」

「You did.」

Before coming here, Alfiris had actually done some good deed at the rate of one good deed a day, such as sharing food with the stranded, saving a carriage stuck in a ditch, and so on. In Lisa’s sense, she was a bit of a softy, but that was one of the things that made her so likeable to Alfiris. Such sycophancy is rare in this day and age. She also knew that she was not just a good-natured person, but she couldn’t help but help others. Even though she say this with her mouth, she will try to help as many as possible when the time comes.

「(Well, when push comes to shove, let’s use Lisa and Miranda to do the dirty work.)」

Lisa sighs and is determined, but Alfiris is blissfully unaware of this and her mind has already flown elsewhere.

In fact, she was also looking forward to exploring the dungeon, but she decided to keep that a secret from everyone. When they returned that day and told them what had happened, they all agreed, but Alfiris and Lisa, who had nothing better to do at night, were also forced to work on the first floor of the inn for some reason. Why there are even two work clothes for them was a mystery.

「(I don’t want to be embarrassed by short skirts or anything like that. Especially since the rest of the group is wearing so thin…)」

And then there’s Alfiris, who fidgets. She secretly discussed those inner thoughts with Miranda, but—

「If you don’t put it out now, when will you put it out!? If you don’t get it out while you can, you’ll never get it out, okay?」

The theory was debunked with a theory that she didn’t understand. But it was good to see Nia working in the groove, Alfiris forced herself to accept it. Lisa was talking about「moe」to both Nia and Fenna, and around Miranda, for some reason, everyone was sitting on the ground worshipping Miranda. This is the usual scene… it could be bad. At closing time, the master asked him to continue working at the restaurant, but he simply refused. Nia looked a little, no, a lot disappointed, but it was Alfieres who pretended not to have seen it.

The next morning, they left with very pleasant weather. The wind feels good, and Alfiris is in a good mood. From here, it is approximately three days to the dungeon, using horses as well. This weather will continue for some time to come, but Alfiris could not imagine at this time that she would not be able to look up at this sky with the same feeling a few days from now.